


Pain

by orphan_account



Category: X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, Dark Past, Drug Use, Hank Being Awesome, Hurt No Comfort, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Not A Fix-It, Past Child Abuse, Past Relationship(s), Post Beach Divorce, Post X-Men: First Class, Self Confidence Issues, Self-Destruction, Self-Esteem Issues, Self-Harm, Self-Hatred, trigger warning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-24
Updated: 2018-09-24
Packaged: 2019-07-16 14:51:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16088351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: All he felt was pain.





	Pain

Three years.

 

It had been three years since that dreaded day in Cuba, the day he was left to die on that god-forsaken island by his sister and his closest friend.

 

Erik.

 

Charles sometimes wondered if Erik ever thought about him. Probably not.

 

Why would he?

 

He left Charles, broken and alone, on that island, betraying him. He didn’t even spare a second glance as he handed Charles over to his friends, standing tall to take away his sister. Then he left, left without a proper goodbye as Charles laid there, paralysed, and abandoned.

 

All he knew was that he thought about Erik. Constantly. Everything reminded him of Erik. The chessboard had been destroyed, kicked and ripped and broken, hidden away in the deepest parts of his closet. It held too many memories, too many memories of nights of playful banter and innocent smiles.

 

The halls were empty, the school abandoned, his closet friend a bottle of scotch, numbing the mind-crushing sadness that threatened his every-waking moment. Hank watched in pity, unable to help Charles as he fell deeper and deeper into a pit of unbeatable sadness and desperation.

 

That was a year ago, though. The sadness had given way to numbness, which wasn’t much better. He didn’t feel anymore. The sadness, the pain, the anger, all gone. Replaced with a feeling of emptiness and overwhelming loss.

 

He didn’t spare a glance towards the razors kept in the cabinet until a year and a half after Erik had left him. And when he did, he found himself unable to look away. He reached out, thin fingers wrapping around the cold metallic blade. He smiled sadly, a flash of Erik’s beautiful smile when he moved the satellite coming across his mind. He shook it away, sitting on the lid of the toilet.He pulled off his trousers, wincing at the dull pain in his lower back. Hank had been the one to invent the serum that helped him walk, and in turn, devoid him of his mutant abilities. Not that he had been complaining, the voices in his head had become too much to handle.

 

He stared down at the milky skin of his thighs, then at the blade between his nimble fingers. He slowly lowered the gleaming metal object to his thigh, stilling as he felt the cold touch of the blade against it.

 

He had been numb for too long.

 

He slid the blade across his leg in a fluid motion, hissing at the sting. Blood bubbled up to the surface, a deep red against the stark white of his skin. He shuddered, letting the blade fall to the ground.

 

So he could still feel.

 

He bandaged the wound and stood, leg aching in protest. He ignored it, stumbling out of the room and down the stairs. Hank was in his lab, hiding away with his own pain. They were both broken, abandoned souls, destined to fall back on each other because no one else wanted them. He walked straight to the liquor cabinet, throwing it open. He grabbed the first bottle he could and downed it quickly, wiping his mouth on his sleeve.

 

 

Hank found him the next morning, past out on the floor, a bottle in his hand and a bandage across his thigh.

 

 

“You should go.” Charles had whispered as Hank finished cleaning the wound, looking up at him from above his glasses. Hank hummed and stood up, turning around to grab another bandage. He offered a sad smile that made Charles sick, he didn’t want the man’s pity. He didn’t deserve it. All he did was hurt people. Drive them away.

 

“I don’t think I could, professor.” Hank chuckled, but there was no humour behind it. Charles scoffed, reaching out for his bottle of scotch. He took a sip.

 

“Don’t call me that.”

 

 

Hank told him to get some sleep. He didn’t think he could. Not now. Not ever. How could he sleep in the bed he and Erik had spent so many nights in together? Nights of passion and lust, nights of tears and comfort, nights of loving cuddles and whispered promises. Empty, broken promises, he now realised.

 

He could hear the voices starting to come back, the screams of pain and the cries for help. He growled under his breath, reaching out for the syringe. The pain it brought was old, only a dull ache now. He needed something else. Something more. He needed to feel again. Needed to.

 

And so it happened again. This time, it wasn’t just one. It was two, it was three, it was four, it was five, it was slit upon slit until his thigh was a bloody mess and the floor was dotted with pretty drops of red. He gagged, tears pooling in his eyes. He could feel the pain.

 

 

Pain. He could feel pain. Pain made him feel again. Made him remember he was alive. Pain was real. He knew pain.

 

Pain wasn’t unfamiliar to him, contrary to Erik’s belief. He had grown up around pain, always felt it, always witnessed it. He had felt pain more times than he could count when he was younger. Whether it was shards of broken glass imbedded in his skin from his drunken mother, or the angry, unwavering hands of his stepfather, he knew pain. Pain was an old friend. But he had always felt other things too, like love, and happiness, and sadness. Now, it was only emptiness and pain.

 

Erik had taken his ability to love. To be happy. He had been something akin to happy when the children filtered in as the school first opened, but that was quickly ripped away as the war worsened, ripping away his only source of light in his desolate world of sadness.

 

He had told himself every day for the first four months that tomorrow Erik would come home, come back to him, tell him he was sorry and that he wasn’t going to leave again. And everyday he went to bed crying, because he knew that wasn’t true. Erik wasn’t coming home.

 

And that broke his heart.

 

 

Because no matter how much he tried telling himself otherwise, he still loved Erik.

 

And yet Erik didn’t love him.


End file.
